


Burn

by orphan_account



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Past Alexander Hamilton/Elizabeth "Eliza" Schuyler, The Reynolds Pamphlet happens, affair, but like modern, eliza burns alexanders stuff, eliza is a lot more hostile, have fun, oh also some death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:22:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8343313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The whole 'The Reynolds Pamphlet' thing happens, but in a modern setting. This is the aftermath.





	

Eliza lay on her back, staring at her ceiling. Her eyes were wide open despite how much the cold air stung them. Tears rolled down the sides of her face. Her throat hurt from crying.

How could he? Why would he do something like that? He said he’d be faithful.

Then he exposed himself. Nobody knew! Nobody knew but him, Maria, and James Reynolds. But he’d gone and told the whole world about it. He’d posted pictures of them. He’d posted screenshots of their texts. He included a message, of him begging for forgiveness, but it was worthless.

All those words couldn’t bury the fact that he cheated on her. Her Alexander cheated on her and told the world.

Eliza staggered to her feet. Angelica would be here soon, and that would be nice. She bought a plane ticket to America as soon as she heard, and was on her way.

Peggy would be here if she could. But Peggy had died seven months ago in a car crash, not even twenty-two years old.

Oh god, why was this happening? Why was the happening to her? What had she done wrong in her life?

 

Throwing open her door, Eliza steps into the main room of her apartment. Alexander had looked for a new apartment, one the both of them could move into, so he had left some of his stuff in her house. Eliza picked up the bag of his clothes and screamed. She threw them across the room, allowing them to scatter.

Eliza picked up another bag and opened it. Inside was a box of childhood memories, if what the sharpie on the outside of the box was true.

Crossing the room to open the door to her balcony, she looks in the box. Inside is pictures and memories of his mother. Eliza holds the box off the edge of the balcony, overlooking a sidewalk. She hesitates before putting it back in the house.

Alexander’s poor mother had nothing to do with this. Eliza, running now, puts the box in her closet, before running back to the other things Alexander and left. She trips on his clothes, and shouts as she falls. Picking up the pair of jeans and shirt she had tripped on, she runs back to the open door. She dangles the clothes off of the balcony before dropping them. There’s a shout from the sidewalk.

“Shit, she’s dropping clothes!”

 

For some reason, that motivates her. Eliza turns and grabs the clothes that had scattered on the floor and throws them off as well. She grabs the duffel bag, letting out a sob when she remembers that she bought it for him.

The duffel bag falls faster than the clothes did, and there’s a shout of alarm from the street. Alexander’s clothes are all gone now.

Good.

Eliza lets loose a shriek of laughter that turns into a wail of misery. It’s not fair, why did he have to cheat? They could have been happy! They could have been so, so, happy!

 

The next bag is full of his most important books. Eliza is ready to rip page after page out of the books when she thinks of something better. Eliza stands and walks to her kitchen, going through each of her drawers until she finds what she’s looking for. A lighter.

Eliza pulls the rest of the bags onto her balcony. She stands in the center, holding the lighter. Taking a book from the bag, she clicks the lighter on and makes the book catch fire. Eliza watches it burn before dropping it.

Nobody’s there, thank god, and people begin to back away from her balcony.

The books all burn, some better than others. Her vision is blurred from tears. She knows people are recording her. They will post it on their social media. It will go big, the video of her burning her ex’s things.

Maybe it will go as big as Alexander’s post.

Her hands find a handwritten paper, and she looks at it. It’s the draft of a love letter, addressed to her. It’s the first of many.

“I saved every letter you wrote me,” she says. Her words carry clear over the road and sidewalk below her. “From the moment I read them, I knew you were mine.” Tears stain the letter. “You said you were mine, I thought you were mine.” She lights the letter on fire and drops it.

“You published the things that she wrote to you! You told the whole world how you brought this girl into our bed!” Another burning letter flutters to the ground.

Eliza picks up the bag full of his letters and makes the top layer catch flame. It’s dangerous, she knows, but she finds she doesn’t care.

“You and your words obsessed with your legacy!” She pushes the bag off the edge of her balcony. It releases the burning letters as it falls.  
“Let the world see how poor Eliza acted when you broke her heart, you’ve torn it all apart!” One bag has a folder full of pictures, all printed on paper. It’ll burn.

Eliza pulls out a picture at random. It’s her and Alexander at a fancy restaurant. Both of them are smiling.

Eliza lifts the lighter to the edge of the picture. “I’m watching it burn!”

She lights another picture. “I’m burning the memories!” As she speaks, she makes more pictures catch fire and drops them, watching them spiral down. “You forfeit the right to my heart! You forfeit the place in our bed! You’ll sleep in a motel tonight! You can keep the memories of when you were mine. I hope that you burn! Alexander, I hope that you burn!”

Everything has been burnt, everything except the memories of his mother. With everything she had to do done, Eliza clicks the lighter off. She’s about to go back inside, when with a scream of despair, she throws the lighter off the balcony.

Eliza finds that once she’s inside, she doesn’t have the strength to return to bed, even. She lets herself collapse on the floor. Her clothes smell like smoke. She feels like she swallowed glass shards. Her fingertips are burnt.

But even with all that, she feels slightly better than before.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you guys think!


End file.
